


the power of your intense fragility

by fatalize



Category: Fruits Basket
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 21:33:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9258137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatalize/pseuds/fatalize
Summary: It feels like a dream, being together.





	

“nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals  
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture  
compels me with the colour of its countries,  
rendering death and forever with each breathing.”

\-- somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond by e.e. cummings.

 

She thought of her veins like puppet-strings, thin lines that kept her alive for someone else’s wishes. She thought of her heart as not her own, but as something forced to beat to the drum of whoever asked for it, whoever wanted her to be anything but what she was. Her body was an instrument, designed to be precise and impeccable, fated to never be enough. And she hated it.

“Machi breaks things.” Small whispers, sharp consonants cracking like lightning. “Isn’t that _strange_?”

Wishes for perfection assault her ears, incessant and endless— _you have to_ _be good be good be good be good be good—_ and insecurity constricts her body, binding her limbs, her words, her will. Frustration slowly begins to bubble up in her fingertips, then jolts quickly through her arm, an impulse that sends it flying out, knocking over whatever’s closest—her pencil case, her papers, her books; the ground quickly becomes an amalgam of who-knows-what, and she can’t see the floor for the debris.

Machi looks at the mess on the floor, thinks: _this is me, this is who I am._ The pressure to be perfect creates cracks all over from her skin through her marrow, ones she doesn’t know how to plug up on her own—she releases feelings like geysers, erupting, finding no solution other than to simply burst.

 _Isn’t she strange?_ the voice in the back of her head echoes.

Odd, absurd. Need to be normal, can’t be normal, can only break, destroy, self-destruct. Nothing matters, everything matters, and impossibility and chaos reign inside like callous kings.

_I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.  
I won’t do it again._

“Won’t do it again?” a new voice this time. Delicate, soft, firm.

“Doesn’t that just drive you into a corner even more?” Coaxing, gentle, direct.

Yuki’s voice. It had become so familiar recently. She observed him, and those around him, with great care.

They call him: princely, kind. They call him: boring, dry.

She sees him: lonely, shy.

“We’ll work on it together.”

And the bubbling anxiety in her fingertips cools down, transforming, slowly, into butterflies. They shoot through her veins straight to her heart, making her jump in ways that are unbalancing but not altogether unwanted.

It happens, even now, when they’re together. The butterflies flutter and flitter, and they jolt her fingers, but not in a destructive way; she reaches for his hand but her fingers jerk and miss their target. Embarrassed, she hides her hands behind her back, but Yuki notices, and instead of thinking she’s strange, gives her a light smile and tightly, reassuringly, takes her hand.

They’re both like that, sometimes, when it comes to physical affection—one hesitating, one firm. Yuki does it, too, unsure to embrace her, unsure to hold her too close sometimes, although she can tell how much he craves it. Machi gets tripped up by the small things—holding hands, casual touches, forehead kisses.

Yuki is awkward at times, with his kindness, with expressing himself, but she prefers it—likes knowing that he’s not flawless like everyone thinks, likes the idea of broken perfection in both of them.

They sit on the floor in her room, backs against the bed. He curls up next to her, lays his head on her shoulder, closes his eyes. “I’m happy,” he says, softly, a whisper-sigh.

She blushes, but doesn’t move. “Right now? Why?”

“Because it feels like a dream, you being here.”

She’s stunned into silence at first. She looks away, blushing more, even though he’s not looking at her. “That’s...embarrassing.” But Machi doesn’t mean it, and he knows she doesn’t.

He straightens up, readjusts his position. Puts his arm around her. Doesn’t quite know where to place it. She decides to help him out by moving closer, craning her head into the crook of his neck, resting her face on his shoulder. Compared to her, he’s cold and pale and fresh-scented.

His skin, like the rest of him, looks fragile. Like if she pressed her dull fingernail into the paper-thin skin of his neck it would immediately break and bleed. She thinks of how opposite and un-delicate she is, how she could wreck him if she wanted, how she could tear into his kindness and rip out the stuffing, leave him worse for wear. But she also thinks of the soft heart beneath her cheek, the steady pulse. The firm foundation he has and the unwavering set of beliefs she knows he possesses. The tender soul that has a sort of intense fragility, easily wounded, but always willing to be repaired.

She knows she won’t break him, because he makes her feel different than the way she feels about others. With him she feels like she’s not a doll, like her veins are more than puppet-strings, like her heart is finally her own, meant to be here beside his.

He presses his nose to the top of her head, breathes in the scent of her, and she jumps. “I’m sorry, was that—?” he starts.

“No, I just—” she fumbles.

“Because if I did something—”

“No, it just, um—” she buries her face further into his shoulder to hide her embarrassment. “I wasn’t expecting you to, uh...sniff my hair. But I didn’t...hate it, or anything.”

For a beat he’s silent; then he laughs, his chest shaking against her face. She snaps up. “What’s so funny!?”

“Nothing,” he says teasingly, reaching out to twirl her hair with his fingers. “Nothing at all.”

And the way he looks at her is so—how can she put it—so _new_ ; so teasing and playful; so warm and gentle and full of love.

“You know, it...” she begins, still looking at him. “It feels like a dream for me, too.”

“It’s a good thing this dream is real, then.” A smile.

The butterflies jump through her veins again.

For the first time, she’s content to lean on another person amidst the haphazard mess of her bedroom floor.


End file.
